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MALENTINE
Evoljen the Effulgent, a Scandinavian wizard prominent during the seventeenth century, once said that 'Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.'
Severus remembered reading this in a history book when he was fourteen, and being disgusted to find that the man who had invented the Incontinence Infusion and the Draught of Detumescence was also a leading authority in the field of Love Potions. Apparently the old fool had been quite the romantic, and dedicated equal amounts of time to making people happy as he did to making them miserable. He even began recruiting young apprentice alchemists whom he called his 'cherubs', and referred to himself as Love's Champion. Then he was killed when a Cupid's Charm caused him to fall in love with a Muggle weapon known as a pistol. The details of what he was doing when the gun went off and blasted a hole in the back of his head were not clear.
Severus would have dearly loved to re-animate this great thinker, to drag him screaming and rotting from his grave and force him to spend an hour with love's current champion - Gilderoy Lockhart, prancing vaudevillian extraordinaire.
"You do seem to have a certain �.antipathy towards those who are well known, Severus." Albus' eyes were twinkling when he'd said it. "One might almost think you were jealous. Or perhaps it is Gilderoy's fondness for Valentine's Day which has so irked you?"
Valentine's Day. Of all the absurd notions. The castle was awash in a sea of vile colours - those ridiculous floating hearts kept vomiting pink streamers at him as he made his way to his study, and the Great Hall, when he glanced in, looked as though sentimentality and schmaltz had mated in there and no one had bothered to clean up the afterbirth.
There were groups of girls in high-pitched hysterics everywhere he looked, and several of the boys were lumbering through the corridors with exactly the stupid, glazed smile that made Severus' fingers itch for his wand and a good Caning Charm.
But corporal punishment had been outlawed after that unfortunate incident with Binns' Bewitched Beating Belt, and the decrepit imbecile had ruined things for the rest of them.
Severus contented himself with breaking his personal record for detentions given in one minute, and, because he was on a roll, decided to deduct a few hundred points from anyone he found hanging about on the staircases.
No Potter, which was unfortunate, but he did find a group of third-year girls to glare at.
His office was cool and dark, the way he'd left it and the way he liked it, and he paused for a moment to check on the progress of his latest experiment.
The experiment growled at him and morphed into a set of very sharp teeth, which snapped at him from the depths of the tank.
Severus nodded, satisfied, and threw his cape onto a nearby chair.
"I thought you might be less dramatic when you were alone," said a voice, and Severus whirled around to face -
Wonderful. Marvelous. "Lockhart."
"But you're not," Lockhart continued, as if Severus hadn't spoken, "The way you just flung your cape onto that chair - magnificent. Of course I know a little about it myself - when I was in Russia, they used to compliment me on my innate grace and-"
"Lockhart," growled Severus, "if all you want to do is prattle on about your army of fans, may I ask that you do it elsewhere?"
"Oh," said Lockhart, and he looked slightly abashed, which was unusual. "Yes. Of course. I actually came to give you something."
"What could you possibly have that could be of interest to me?" Snape gathered his robes around him and settled down in the chair behind his desk.
Lockhart laughed, and half-sat on the edge of Severus' desk. Severus glared at the offending buttock and then at Lockhart's face, but no apology or, more importantly, removal, seemed to be forthcoming.
"I noticed you have a lot of books on Evoljen the Effulgent," he said conversationally. "And it came to mind that on one of my travels - you might know it, there's a slight mention in the third volume of haiku I wrote - I came across the only remaining one of these."
He held out his hand, and dropped what appeared to be a skinned rodent onto the desk.
Snape looked at it. It pulsed sulkily, but it didn't seem to be bursting into song or anything equally absurd, so he picked it up in order to examine it more closely.
Not a skinned rodent. It was a human heart, beating, and still warm - and mysteriously not leaving any blood on his hands.
It couldn't be.
It *was*.
Evoljen the Effulgent's greatest triumph - the Malentine. The device with which one could make one's foe feel wretched and miserable - as soon as they laid eyes on it. Of course it only worked in the hands of a practiced wizard, and the effect was only momentary, but it did have the interesting side-effect of making one's enemy wail a number of amusing phrases, including "I am not worthy of love!" and "I'm HIDEOUS!" and Severus' personal favourite, "I'm going to die all alone, half eaten by an Alsatian!"
"Lockhart," he breathed, "Where did you - Lockhart?"
"�very proud of the left side of my nose. It's all about symmetry, you see, although I don't see it as enhancement when really all the charm does is make sure one side matches the other. And I do have very good genes."
"Gilderoy!" Severus barked, and Lockhart jumped, hastily pushing the mirror back into his pocket. "Will you cease your inane babbling for *one minute* and tell me where you found this?"
Lockhart smiled, and from within his hideous purple robe he produced a book. It landed on Severus' desk with a loud thunk.
The experiment in the corner hissed at the noise.
"It's all in there, if you care to read it," said Lockhart, and got up from the desk. He flapped an effeminate hand at Snape's bookshelves. "I noticed you don't have any of my books. An oversight, I'm sure."
Then, with a toss of his ridiculous curls and a sweep of that blinding cape, he was gone.
Snape picked up the Malentine, and took it over to the experiment.
He waved it inside the tank.
The experiment blinked malevolent beady eyes at him, and hissed menacingly.
"Immune," murmured Severus, and smiled. "Good."
Then he slipped the Malentine up his sleeve, and picked up his cape as he left the office.
That group of hysterical third years by the lockers was just ripe for a test run.
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